The Jonah Goldberg Variations

Jonah Goldberg, National Review’s encephalitic version of Mark Steyn, plans to launch a media company. Written in Graffiti, the digital shorthand for the Palm Pilot, Goldberg said the company would be a conservative alternative for bankruptcy lawyers in search of future assets to liquidate.

According to Goldberg: “It’s time I run my own shop with other people’s money. And while I could pitch my idea on ‘Shark Tank,’ I trust markets over experienced and inquisitive investors.” Goldberg, who is the author of multiple unsent resignation letters, called his departure from NR “hard but necessary, as I have a president to defeat, a country to save, and snacks to eat. The rest is commentary. Or Commentary.”

Asked to comment on Goldberg’s announcement, John Podhoretz, editor of Commentary magazine, said (after a coughing fit, outside a robbery investigation of a bakery on New York’s Upper West Side): “Jonah is the greatest columnist of his generation. If I were Trump, I’d be as scared of him as I am of vegetables.”

George Will, a contributor to NR and a frequent critic of the Trump Administration, compared Goldberg to Nathan Hale, John Peter Zenger, and Thomas Jefferson.

“In a propitious test of whether liberty can endure, the question is, ‘Shall we drown with the whale, inside the whale, or shall we swim to the shores of verdant hills and majestic horizons, where, to paraphrase Ronald Reagan, we will go ahead and make our day?’ Jonah is our captain. From such leaders do vessels sail.”

Goldberg downplayed the comparison, saying: “I am blessed to have such good friends. When I fail, I know they will still print my copy.”